During material processing, such as semiconductor device manufacturing for production of integrated circuits (ICs), plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), plasma etching, and/or plasma doping of a substrate are common techniques to treat substrates. For example, in semiconductor manufacturing, such vapor deposition processes may be used for gate dielectric film formation in front-end-of-line (FEOL) operations, and low dielectric constant (low-k) or ultra-low-k, porous or non-porous, dielectric film formation and barrier/seed layer formation for metallization in back-end-of-line (BEOL) operations, as well as capacitor dielectric film formation in Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) production.
In a PECVD process, the CVD process further includes plasma that may be utilized to alter or enhance the film deposition mechanism. For instance, plasma excitation can allow film-forming reactions to proceed at temperatures that are significantly lower than those typically required to produce a similar film by thermally excited CVD. In addition, plasma excitation may activate film-forming chemical reactions that are not energetically or kinetically favored in thermal CVD.
In a plasma etch process, the etch process further includes plasma that may be utilized to generate ions that may be used to etch a surface of the substrate. For instance, plasma excitation may generate ions that may be used to impact the substrate surface to remove a portion of the substrate surface.
In a plasma doping process, the doping may include implanting ions from the plasma into a substrate. The implanted ions may alter the electrical properties of the substrate to facilitate the flow of current within the substrate.